A nostalgic journey to the past to relive the golden days of entertainment!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

BORN ON THIS DAY: BARBARA RUSH

Barbara Rush is one of those actreses where you recognize her beautiful face before you recognize the name. She was born on this day - January 4th in 1927. A student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures.

She made her screen debut in the 1951 movie The Goldbergs and went on to star opposite the likes of James Mason, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas. In 1954 she won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer - Female" for her performance in It Came from Outer Space.

Rush began her career on stage and it has always been a part of her professional life. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre for her leading role in Forty Carats and brought her one-woman play A Woman of Independent Means to Broadway in 1984. She began working on television in the 1950s. She later became a regular performer in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other shows including Peyton Place and the soap opera All My Children.

In 1962, she guest starred as Linda Kinkcaid in the episode "Make Me a Place" on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour starring Wendell Corey and Jack Ging. In 1962-1963, she appeared three times as Lizzie Hogan on the short-lived NBC drama about newspapers, Saints and Sinners. In 1965, she appeared in a 2-part episode of The Fugitive entitled "Landscape with Running Figures" as Marie Gerard. In 1967, she guest starred on the ABC western series Custer starring Wayne Maunder.

She often played a willful woman of means or a polished, high-society doyenne. Rush also was cast in an occasional villainess role, as in the Rat Pack's gangster musical Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964) or in the Western drama Hombre (1967), as a rich, condescending wife of a thief who ends up taken hostage and tied to a stake.

She portrayed the devious Nora Clavicle in the TV series Batman. After appearing in the 1980 disco-themed Can't Stop the Music, Rush returned to television work. She was a regular cast member on the early 1980s soap opera Flamingo Road as Eudora Weldon. She also was a guest star character named Elizabeth Knight in the season 2 debut episode "Goliath" of the 80's TV series Knight Rider. In 1998 she was featured in an episode called "Balance of Nature" on the television series The Outer Limits. Rush continues to make guest appearances on television as recent as 2007 in the recurring role of Grandma Ruth Camden on the series, 7th Heaven...